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Book Review: Freehold - Michael Z. Williamson (2004)

Frank W Hagen — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 02:23:57 GMT

Well, I am not afraid to admit that the only reason I picked up this book was because it was a free ebook on Baen’s website. I think. It was a long time ago. I read a recommendation of it somewhere, probably on John Scalzi’s Whatever weblog site, and decided I had nothing to lose. Besides, I was looking for a well-formatted ebook to try out on my PDA using MobiReader.

Freehold is old-school Science Fiction in the vein of Heinlein and Drake. It follows the desperate escape from Earth of Sergeant Kendra Pacelli of the UN Military after being framed in an embezzlement scheme. She finds herself on Freehold after seeking asylum at their Earth-side embassy and is overwhelmed by extreme culture shock. What seems to me to be the ultimate Libertarian Utopia, is a unrestricted nightmare for someone who grew up in the authoritarian, politically correct, dystopian future that the modern world seems to be trending toward. We get to follow her adjustment to a personally responsible, high-technology life on a world devoted to the freedom of the individual.

It is difficult to preview this book without giving much away, so I won’t go into it much. While it seems that it could be rather proselytizing, it really is able to keep it down to a minimum. As I am a big fan of smaller government, the concept of Freehold, an individuals’ liberty and government minimization greatly appealed to me, and was essential to the storyline, but only was used that far and not to bludgeon the reader with political badgering. The only major problem I had with the book was its length. Because it was so long, it took awhile for anything to really get going. I read this on my PDA, but read something on the order of 10 other books in the meantime, going back over a year. Not that it was boring, but just a bit slow in the beginning. But not to worry, it really picks up at the end and I ended up with a few really late nights to finish it. A good read made great by its availability, and it served it’s purpose: I will pick up more from this author in the future.

XP Mode and MS VPN Problems

Frank W Hagen — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:39:03 GMT

Windows 7 XP Mode is probably the best feature added to Windows in a long time. I won’t go into how awesome here, but this is the compatibility measure Microsoft should have pursued years ago. That said, the main use I have for it is to VPN into my office network.

The client site I am working at is using normal MS VPN connections which are easy to setup and use. Their parent company, however, insists on the Cisco VPN client, which I am loathe to install on my clean Win7 installation. So I have both setup in XP Mode and can use them interchangeably.

Getting the initial setup was a little tricky: First you must shutdown the VirtualPC then switch the network setting from “Shared Network (NAT)” to a named network card. The funny thing is, the only symptom is the connection is made but times out on authentication. weird.

However, I ran into a problem where I could no longer get the built in Windows VPN client to connect. It couldn’t find the address. Then browsing stopped working, even the Cisco VPN client failed. After 2 re-installs (of XP Mode) I finally found a post that recommends removing the Virtual PC Network Filter Driver from the NIC, rebooting and re-installing. Like magic, everything works. Evidently a patch to XP Mode or Virtualization knocked it out. (I did start with the RC of XP Mode 64-bit, maybe the reason…) The blog was the Virtual PC Guy but the instructions were for XP and Vista, not 7. The 7 instructions are below:

1. Click on the network icon in the tray and Open Network and Sharing Center (or from the Start menu)
2. Click on the active connection (Mine is Local Area Connection 2)
3. In the Properties dialog, highlight the Virtual PC Network Filter Driver and Uninstall (I deselected IPv6 while I was there; it’s not needed yet)
4. Click OKs back to desktop and Reboot (evidently a critical step)
5. repeat 1 & 2 and click Install in the Properties dialog
6. Select Service and Add; the Virtual PC Network Filter Driver should still be there, select it and click OKs out to the desktop.

Fire up XPMode VPC and you should be good to go. I was.

UPDATE: I am still having this problem. I have found a reboot is usually enough to reset it, but I am still looking for a way to reset just the VPN driver without a reboot. I've found nothing, yet....

UPDATE 2: Microsoft seems to have issued a Windows7 x64 hotfix for this issue quietly. I am no longer having this problem, unless the system goes to sleep mode while VPC is running. Then it's a reboot of the physical host to reset.

Windows Sidebar on XP

Frank W Hagen — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:56:04 GMT

One of my favorite features in Vista is the Sidebar. I have been using precursors of it since Windows 3.11. Anyone remember HP’s Dashboard? I bought and used that app every day on every system I used until Windows 98. Since then, I’ve used Konfabulator, Stardock’s DesktopX and many others. When Microsoft came out with Vista’s sidebar, it quickly became one of my favorite features. In fact, it remains my sole disappointment with 7 so far; it just doesn’t work quite as well.

At work, I am forced to use a 32-bit XP system. I miss many of the sidebar elements while working. CPU, memory and network metering are part of my dev cycle. And there are decent enough widgets that come close. Clocks, calendars and other items are very useful. But the sidebar wasn’t portable to XP.

Until, that is, I found a patched/hacked version on DeviantART that seems to work very well. Called simply Windows Sidebar, Real One, Pack, it comes bundled with the Alky for Windows library that allows it to run within XP (you don’t need to supply a Vista key when it asks, by the way). So with a couple of useful gadgets, especially the ones from Orb2k, I can have all of my monitoring loaded in one extensible process. Very nice, and thanks to ~joshoon of DeviantART.com.

Windows 7 + x64 + 8GB RAM + VS08 = AWESOME

Frank W Hagen — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:23:04 GMT

Well I finally bought 8GB DDR2 for The Beast. Before I installed it, however, I went ahead and installed Windows 7, in 64-bit mode, of course. While I was a fan of Vista, I am very impressed with 7, though I still feel it to be a better chromed version of Vista. But the 8 gigs is awesome! NO more memory issues, pagefile thrashing, or even a need for ReadyBoost. And I haven’t run into a limit of Visual Studios open at one time. Now I can finish my micro netcast receiver project…. (Ok, I probably didn’t need 8G for that.)

And the frosting? XP Mode. My client site has switched to Cisco VPN from whatever they were using that was MS compatible. I hate the Cisco VPN client. And of course, it won’t work on a 64-bit OS. So I downloaded the RC version of XP Mode, fired it right up, installed the VPN and was connected to their network in under 5 minutes. I’m gonna love that feature!

Simple C# Command-Line Compiles

Frank W Hagen — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:08:03 GMT

In the category of “So I don’t forget again”, here is how to compile a simple code.cs file to a console executable:

csc /t:exe NetDir.cs

Very simple, very easy. To make it a Windows exe (console app with no console window, very useful for scheduled or batch processing), change the target (/t == /target) to winexe.

Book Review: Alas, Babylon - Pat Frank (1959)

Frank W Hagen — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:58:30 GMT

Ok, last review was a little over the top. I should have called it: The 21st Century's Alas, Babylon. This book is credited as inspiration to One Second After and with good reason. Having never read it, I thought it was time.

"The Day" is the one when the bombs fall. Although we meet our hero Randy Bragg, native of Central Florida (just north of Orlando), and his brother Mark, who serves in Intelligence for SAC, a few weeks before. Mark warns Randy of an impending attack and sends his wife and kids to stay with him to weather the threat, giving them all some time to prepare. The threat is realized when the morning skies are lit up in the direction of Tampa, then less so from Daytona and Miami. And all doubt is erased when the nuclear strike on Orlando itself and the resulting mushroom cloud is unmistakable. The rest of the book is the story of a small community fighting for survival in the Florida "Contaminated Zone".

Set in the late '50s, it has an interesting perspective for me, knowing Orlando 30 years later. The references to McCoy Air Force Base (now Orlando International Airport), Pinecastle and the St. John's River are enjoyable and interesting landmarks. This is also a well thought out and written book, although not as grim as One Second After, and the characters seemed a bit flat to me as well. Both these comments, though, are to be expected for a book written 50 years ago. I found some details, such as the abundance of food, and the town rallying behind the leadership of a man all felt previously to be a amusing playboy, to be disappointing. But it was a very enjoyable read and was significant for its times, if not so much today.

Book Review: One Second After - William R. Forstchen (2009)

Frank W Hagen — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:50:58 GMT

And now, the book heralded across the Internet as a must read. One that eclipses most other novels, and tainted my perception of previous reads (Sorry J.F.Lewis). It was referenced by Techo-geeks, Military writers and SciFi fans. How could I not read it? I ended up getting a copy from the local library and consumed it in little over a week.

One Second After actually starts a couple days before. Then suddenly, the power goes out, most cars stop, and all electronics go dead. And nobody knows why. Retired USArmy Colonel John Matherson has a pretty good suspicion having to do with high-altitude EMP burst attacks over the United States, but with no communications with anyone in earshot, who can tell? What follows is a chillingly realistic look at how devastating the total disruption of electricity would be to our country. The entire novel is set around the people in a small North Carolina community struggling to survive in conditions 100 years gone.

This is one of the most disturbing book I have ever read. At the same time, it was very well written and executed. I felt for the characters, identified with them, feared for them. I will be buying this book for myself later, it was so good. I have recommended it to everyone into technology and anyone who feels "safe" from foreign threats. This is "Red Dawn" of the 21st Century.

Book Review: ReVamped - J. F. Lewis (2009)

Frank W Hagen — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:49:56 GMT

I've gotten way behind and am having a hard time remembering what I've read. First up, though, is the sequel to Staked. Again, I bought this for the wife, but since I enjoyed it so much, I wanted to read ReVamped too.

ReVamped continues where Staked left off. Eric, a newly undead but powerful vampire with a bit of a memory problem, struggles to overcome the "Problems" incurred at the end of the first book and find answers to who and what he is. And find out who is responsible and exact some revenge. Definitely a fun story!

I was really impressed by Book 1, but not so much by this one. It's not that it wasn't good, because it was. Just not great. I came away feeling that it was a continuation of an ongoing story and didn't really resolve anything important. Maybe it was me and I had too high expectations. We'll see how the wife likes it...

Book Review: Rules of Prey - John Sandford (1989)

Frank W Hagen — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:24:32 GMT

Some time ago, I came across my old friend Tom Cavanagh online and discovered he is a writer. I read his first 2 books and really enjoyed them both. I don't usually enjoy crime novels, but someone lent me this book, and because I enjoyed Tom's books so well, and because Sandford is the pseudonym of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Roswell Camp, I tried it out.

Lucas Davenport is a celebrated police detective in the Minneapolis area who is renowned for using his intellect and game building skills to crack cases. He is brought in to solve a series of seemingly unconnected murders that have all been "signed" by a single killer's messages to the cops. Davenport is forced to out-think a killer who obviously is familiar with forensics and police procedure in order to bring the killer in. What results is a good, rarely predictable investigation that pits mind against mind in a struggle to be top game master.

Ok, I'm still not a fan of crime novels. But I did enjoy this one. It was a mix of the TV shows CSI, Criminal Minds, and Psych. Actually, I couldn't get the image of Lassiter from Psych out of my mind during passages about Davenport, although his actions were more James Bond than Lassy. This was a good diversion, if not a great book. It remains to be seen if I read more of the series (19 books!).

Book Review: Heechee Rendezvous - Frederik Pohl (1984)

Frank W Hagen — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:20:35 GMT

Heechee Rendezvous is book 3 of the classic Heechee Saga of Frederik Pohl. While Gateway is a very different read, the second of the saga was more mainstream than its predecessor. And HR is good solid modern Science Fiction.

Again, we join Robinette Broadhead, the even richer billionaire of the Gateway saga. But this time, right from the start, we learn of the alien race known to the humans as Heechee. The main storyline begins with a down-and-out pilot on one of the Gateway planets who decides to work his way back to Earth on a transport ship after his young wife leaves him to go exploring with the castway Han from the 2nd book. On the voyage home, he discovers evidence that the Heechee are still around and can be found, so his plans change to confront Broadhead with a plan to do so. Meanwhile, Han has found the black hole that changed Robin's life so dramatically in the first book and rescued Robin's lost love as a consequence. Both these actions alert and trigger the emergence of the Heechee into Human space, along with a warning of the Assassins who may be awakened to return and destroy all life in the universe.

Final answers in the Heechee Saga are not answered here. We are obviously led up to a conclusion in the final book Annals of the Heechee. This was a good read and Pohl's grasp of science and technology is, again, very refreshing, especially this volumes examination of Artificial Intelligences and the question of storage of human intellect. I am really enjoying reading this series and look forward to the final book.

Star Wars For a New Generation

Frank W Hagen — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:09:55 GMT

This past weekend, I sat down with my 6 year old daughter and watched Star Wars. It was her first time, certainly not mine. She really likes the Clone Wars series on Cartoon Network, so I thought it was time. It was an interesting experience.

Star Wars came out when I was 7. I never saw it in the theaters in its original release; my parents seldom took us to a theater, and then only for "kids" movies. I did see it years later, but never the original cut. My first exposure was a VHS tape that our uncle gave my father. I watched that tape over and over until it wore out, literally. I bought the trilogy on VHS when it was released as a boxed set later on, and again when it was remastered with THX sound. And I got a copy when the whole set was reworked with new CGI content. Oh, I have seen Star Wars a few times...

The version I showed my daughter was in HD. Obviously the latest remastered, cleaned, reedited, Greedo shot first, equatorial shock wave edition. It was beautiful. After the attack on Leia's ship, I remarked to my wife, "I don't believe I have ever seen this movie look so good!". Funny, the version I always remember was grainy and almost smoky; it was thick with atmosphere. This version was crisp and clean, clear and sharp; it looked great, yet somehow lacked something. She loved it.

It's funny how 32 years has changed so much. The impact the film had on me was dramatic, even life changing (OK, I was only 7). Not so much for her. That old tape was a treasure to be handled carefully and saved for the future. The copy from this past weekend was just so many bits on our DVR. It is marvelous to see the world through her new eyes, yet make my own feel that much older.

Book Review: To Fly & Fight -- Memoirs of a Triple Ace - Clarence E. Anderson (1990)

Frank W Hagen — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:46:08 GMT

I finished this book some time ago, but delayed the review of it because I was not sure how to do it properly. Every once in a long while, I will read a book that is so good, so meaningful, that it can change perceptions. This may very well be one of those books. While watching an episode of Dogfights on the History Channel, I learned of Bud Anderson who flew the famous Old Crow P-51 Mustang in Europe during WWII. So I looked him up online and discovered he had written a book.

I grew up believing, and well into adulthood, that Chuck Yeager was probably the greatest (American) pilot of all time. But Yeager himself disagrees: He names Bud Anderson that pilot. He is the only combat pilot in WWII to achieve triple ace (17 kills) and never get hit. His tour of Europe never included a scrubbed mission due to his ability or aircraft. He was incredibly lucky and extremely skilled. The story of Clarence E. "Bud" Anderson reads like a novel but yet contains great technical and tactical data. He grew up a poor farmer, joined up at the opening of the war, flew combat in Europe with one the first squadrons to be outfitted with the Mustang, was a wingman of Chuck Yeager and flight leader as well, a test pilot during the glory days at Edwards, and even flew combat during Vietnam in F-105s. The man is a hero, deserves to be a legend, and still lives today.

To Fly and Fight is written in a humble voice, quick to give credit where due, not afraid to call it like he saw it, and reluctant to believe he is the great hero that he so evidently is. The problem with writing a review of a book such as this, is not to come off sounding ridiculous, but that is a difficult feat. I truly enjoyed this book, and have made it part of my permanent collection.

Converting Large (Random) Numbers to AlphaNumeric Strings

Frank W Hagen — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:23:13 GMT

I have a need to take large random numbers (on the order of 20 digits) and encode them to easily typable strings. I created a quick method to do this in C#. This is the code:

private string ConvertToBase(ulong id)

{

// Seed replacement characters for baseX values

string NumericBaseData = "0123456789ABCDEFGHJKMNPRSTUVWXYZ"; // this string may be in any order as long as each char used only once

ulong OutputBase = Convert.ToUInt64(NumericBaseData.Length); // baseX determined by number of unique chars in seed string

string OutputValue = "";

ulong In = id;

while (In > 0)

{

ulong tn = In % OutputBase;

OutputValue = string.Concat(NumericBaseData.Substring(Convert.ToInt32(tn), 1), OutputValue);

In = In - tn;

In = (In / OutputBase);

}

return OutputValue;

}

For simplicity, I used unsigned longs (64bit), since I am dealing with really big numbers. Performance is reasonable, I am able to generate a large System.Random, mod it against an arbitrary number of DateTime.Now.Ticks, datestamp it, and convert it using the method above in under 9 ms each. (I also have an algorithm to test for uniqueness against previously generated values, but the timings grow with greater sample size as expected.) This method can be modified with any number of cipher characters as long as they are only used once. This particular one uses all letters and numbers except 'O', 'Q', 'L', and 'I' to avoid confusion to end users and is URL freindly.

Looking for Oracle Developer Training for ASP.NET Developers

Frank W Hagen — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:33:59 GMT

I am in the market for some quick, effective training in Oracle Development focused on consumption from a ASP.NET development point of view. I don't need to know how to admin the Oracle server, just how to write effective, efficient queries, setup performant data models, optimize data access and fix our overabundance of foreign keys, indexes and CLOBs. I am advanced in SQL Server development, but need to know the nuances that differ in Oracle.

Any recommendations? Thanks in advance!

Ripping DVDs to My Home Media Player

Frank W Hagen — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:52:01 GMT

After many years of trying, I have finally managed a good (enough) solution to playing video files on my TV. And to make it more desirable, last year, we finally bought an HDTV. I had bought an upconverting DVD player a few years ago for when we did finally do it, and it worked well enough, for awhile. It was just too slow, and unreliable. So when I finally upgraded the wife's computer, I used her old hardware along with some other pieces I had laying around to finally build a media PC. I will never go back. And the family is almost ready to go for a more expensive (really only a few hundred) solution.

Initially, I talked everyone into just running DVDs as normal, using the optical drive in the machine. Windows does a much better job of scaling video than any consumer device I have used (or can afford). Then I started ripping them to files. I have been doing this for years, but not very successfully. Decrypting the discs is easy. Getting a good transcode has never been satisfactory. Then I found avi.NET. This great little tool does only one thing, but it does it very well. It takes the decrypted DVD files and encodes them to an AVI file. It has very few options, but does a really remarkable job.

When encoding a video, I personally never use a fixed bitrate. And the actual size of the end file is not strictly important to me, so I never choose the default option either. I always choose the quality setting called Single Pass Quant. The value used is dependant on the source video. Animations tend to compress very well, so can use a higher value than FMV. I tend to use higher numbers on the kids movies and lower on the movies I want very high quality viewing. Like LAME, lower is better quality. Below 2 makes for huge files, and above 6 starts to impact quality.

The screen.SIZE attribute allows you to reduce the overall resolution of the output movie where 720 is typical max horizontal resolution for a widescreen DVD. The aspect ratio is usually very accurate, but can be adjusted if needed using Height. I have only had to do it 1 time, and then on a foreign title. The Deinterlacing Filter works very well where needed and occasionally I will use the Smooth/Sharp if the source quality is poor. Always use HQ mode; it makes the process slower, but it is very worth it. I have not found much difference between DivX and XviD, except that DivX will thread across all 4 cores of my Q6600, so I use it, where XviD only seems to use 2.

It may take some experimentation as I am sure Your Mileage May Vary, but I am very pleased with results. Sometimes I do have a problem reading some DVD rips, but running them through DVDShrink with no compression has always worked. In fact, DVDShrink is a really convenient way to pick the tracks you want to convert and rip them to a convenient location.

Keep in mind that avi.NET is only useful for converting DVD .vob files. It will do nothing else. For that I use MediaCoder; but that is another show.

Does This String Have Anything In It? in C#

Frank W Hagen — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:43:27 GMT

The following code should be failed by the C#.NET compiler:

if (eventName != null && eventName.Length > 0)

It should never be used. People, always use this instead:

if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(eventName))

It is much more compact, clearer, singleton, and as a String class method, more efficient.

So stop it! You will thank me later. Not to mention: Where are your parentheses? Block your code. Other people have to read it too!

That is all.